


Skye walks into a bar (and it hurts)

by 26stars



Series: How I Met Melinda [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AU Meeting, Fluff, Gen, I needed something light, Skye always needed someone like May in her life and you won't convince me otherwise, more or less
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 07:13:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11801067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/26stars/pseuds/26stars
Summary: AU meeting: “I drunkenly tried to fight you and knocked myself out but you were kind enough to take care of me till I woke up.”





	Skye walks into a bar (and it hurts)

Opening her eyes feels like the most painful thing she’s ever done, but Skye manages it with a very concentrated effort. The ceiling that greets her has a lazily-spinning fan, a fan that she was fairly certain her apartment doesn’t have in any room. For a long moment, she just squints at the circling blades, trying to remember whose home this is…how she ended up here…where she came here from…

As she shifts on whatever flat surface she’s lying on, Skye barely has time to process the movement out of the corner of her eye before a voice comes with it.

“Hey.”

Had she not been lying down, Skye might have jumped, but as it is, all she does is jerk slightly as her head snaps towards the voice. Amidst the headache that crashes soundly over her with the sudden movement, Skye processes a living room she doesn’t recognize, one that’s lit with bright morning sun and inhabited by a woman curled in the armchair on the other side of the coffee table.

Skye squints into the light at the unfamiliar woman, who sets aside the book she had open over the arm of the chair and turns slightly towards her. Chinese, older, but definitely not someone Skye knows.

“How are you feeling?” the woman says, unfolding her legs and leaning slightly towards her.

“Who are you?” Skye says in place of answering, glancing down and seeing that she’s tucked beneath a duvet on the couch, then glancing back at the woman as she extends a hand towards Skye.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three. Who are you?” Skye repeats, attempting to transform her squint into a glare.

The woman lowers her hand, looking amused. “My name’s Melinda. Do you remember me?”

Skye glares harder. “Why the hell would I…”

“You tried to fight me when I got in your way when you were leaving the bar last night,” the woman interrupts, crooking an eyebrow at her.

And then Skye remembers—the beginning anyway. Heading to the bar with a new fake ID and nearly a hundred dollars from her last freelance hacking job that she was planning to blow entirely on enough alcohol to forget the hell of a week she’d had… It was already past midnight when she’d taken her place on a stool in a nearly-empty bar and ordered her first drink. A few people had come and gone but Skye had still noticed the woman on the other side of the bar who had been drinking alone when she arrived and stayed at least as long as Skye had been paying attention.

“So what, did I crash your private drinking den last night?” Skye asks. “Seemed like you had a head start on me.”

“Why were you hanging alone at a bar when you’re so obviously underage?” the woman asks then, resting her elbows on her knees and watching Skye carefully.

“How is that any of your business?” Skye snaps, pushing back the blanket and attempting to lever herself up…

The wave of nausea combines with the throbbing in her head to make her nearly sink right back down onto the sofa, but Skye still forces herself up until her feet meet the floor and she can hang her head between her knees.

“Ughhhhhh,” she groans, waiting for the world to steady. She hears the woman moving around on the other side of her curtain of hair, and when Skye looks up again, she sees a glass of water next to a bagel on a napkin on the coffee table.

“Take it slow, and if you think you’re gonna hurl, there’s a trashcan at the end of the table,” the woman—Melinda—is saying as she sits back down across from Skye. “You may have a concussion in addition to the hangover.”

“Wanna tell me how I got a concussion?” Skye grumbles, still scowling but not so proud as to ignore the water.

Melinda is quiet for long enough that Skye looks up, still attempting a suspicious scowl, and when she does she sees the woman watching her with an echo of sadness in her gaze. “I’d watched you drinking by yourself for way longer than a girl your size should have been, and I was hoping you had a plan for getting home safely. But then this guy came in and tried to get you to leave with him, even though you obviously didn’t know him and weren’t in the best state, so I got in his way when he tried to get you up. You didn’t like me telling you or him what to do, though, so you shouted and then took a swing at me.”

“And what, you hit me back?” Skye sneers, reaching up and palpating her face for sore spots.

She discovers a lump on her forehead as the woman answers, “No, you lost your balance and smacked your head on the bar on the way down. I got the guy away from you and shoved him out of the bar, and the bartender pointed a shotgun at him when he tried to come back in. He’d already called you a cab and asked me to make sure you got home okay.”

“Awfully trusting bartender, sending a vulnerable girl home with a different stranger,” Skye says, raising an eyebrow at the woman, who just shrugs.

“He’s my oldest friend,” she answers simply.

“He didn’t cut me off even though I was getting pretty trashed,” Skye challenges. “Some bartender.”

“He knows when some people just need someone to give them a chance,” Melinda says, her voice strangely solemn. “He was keeping an eye on you. Neither of us were sure how drunk you were until you stood up.”

“Most people don’t know how drunk they are until they stand up,” Skye grumbles, and the woman’s lips turn into the first suggestion of a smile.

An not-uncomfortable silence descends, and Skye glances subtly around the room. It seems to be a small home, so the room feels cozy without feeling crowded. Books are stacked tastefully in shelves next to a few framed photos and dried flowers, and the walls around them are painted a sage green.

“So, you just hauled my drunk ass to your place and put me up on your sofa?” she guesses, noting her shoes and purse sitting on the floor beside the couch. “This something you’ve done before?”

“Bringing home strangers? No not usually,” the woman answers, glancing away. “But your ID was fake, you couldn’t tell me your address, and I couldn’t get into your phone. And I wanted to make sure you were safe.”

She looks back to Skye, this time she can see that it’s not an echo of sadness—it’s just an echo. A familiar sound coming back from a hollowed-out space.

Her head is pounding and she knows her day is most likely shot, but Skye realizes that of all the places she’s been waking up in the past few months, she’s most glad to have woken up here.

“Well, thank you,” she finally says, meeting the woman’s eyes. “For helping me out, and taking care of me.”

Melinda nods. “You’re welcome,” is all she says, and Skye appreciates that.

Aware then of her disgusting breath and yesterday’s makeup still caking her face, Skye glances around the room again. “Where’s your bathroom?”

Melinda points at a door off the living room, and Skye puts both hands on the coffee table for balance as she tries to get herself upright.

“Need help?” the woman offers, getting to her feet quickly moving towards her.

“Cool your jets, lady,” Skye says, holding out a deferring hand. “We just met.”

“Technically, we haven’t yet,” the woman says as Skye straightens up. “Your ID said Mary Poots, but you never responded when I called you that. So what’s your real name?”

“Skye,” she answers, meeting the woman’s eyes and hesitatantly offering her hand. “Call me Skye.”

“Skye,” Melinda repeats, taking her hand and barely shaking it, but Skye feels an echo of strength in her grip. “Nice to meet you.”


End file.
